Standards Control Council: "Need end-to-end electronic processes"
At the presentation of its annual report, the Regulatory Control Council praised the Federal Government, but only a little.
In its annual report, the German Regulatory Control Council (NKR) clearly criticizes the digitalization of administration and the consideration of digital effects in federal legislation – and calls for a debate on the structure.
"Germany is a complicated country that has walled itself in with a multitude of rules and procedures." These are well-intentioned, but slow down innovation and the efficiency of companies and administration, says Lutz Goebel, entrepreneur and Chairman of the Regulatory Control Council: "This creates a feeling of frustration." The German government has now taken the first steps towards less bureaucracy, summarizes Goebel: "All of this points in the right direction, but the praise remains muted." However, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) only acknowledges the first half of this assessment: "We are on the right track! This federal government has done a lot to achieve this," he explains during the morning.
Making laws more practicable
The committee, which is non-partisan, is to submit an opinion on all legislative proposals and examine the impact on bureaucracy and digital suitability, among other things. It draws up its own proposals and is tasked with developing overarching ideas.
Deputy NKR Chairwoman and Potsdam administrative scientist Sabine Kuhlmann cites the "practical check" as an example of better legislation: to find out why solar installations on supermarkets were rare, the Federal Ministry of Economics interviewed company representatives. It turned out that the main obstacle was not energy, building or approval law, but tax law. More such practical checks for laws are needed, and in a binding form.
Digital check often comes too late
The NKR criticizes that the already established digital check, which is used to check laws for digital suitability, is still too often only applied late in the legislative process. By then, however, key decisions have often already been made.
Administrative digitization continues to be a problem area overall. "A liberating blow by clarifying the underlying questions of responsibility is still pending," the committee emphasizes in its report. "The division of labor in the federal state must be critically scrutinized," explains Hannes KĂĽhn, Head of the NKR Secretariat. "The way it is currently organized, we are not achieving scaling, an efficient use of resources."
Yet the digitization of administration is urgent. The NKR calculates that there is already a shortage of 500,000 administrative staff, and the trend is rising sharply. "Anyone who has neither staff nor digital administration will soon have a problem", says KĂĽhn, summarizing the situation. There is no sustainable concept for the digitization of administration and the associated modernization of registers. The timetables are "already a waste of time" and the legal basis is shaky.
Dialogue on federalism called for
Specifically, the committee demands that the discussion on the "target image for digital administration" should no longer be dealt with only in the "niche of the IT Planning Council". There needs to be a "federalism dialog" and a clear commitment to platform solutions, more professionalism in product management and more joint software development and standards.
Another problem with the digitization of administration is funding. The red pencil was applied here in 2024. For cost reasons, this affected the PIN reset letter for the electronic ID card, for example. This is a step backwards, criticizes the NKR. Overall, there is a lack of planning security for the coming years. The Regulatory Control Council is calling for "clarity as to which functions are part of a basic service". Their financing and implementation must be regulated in a binding manner. In principle, the committee sees the marketplace for "One for All" services as positive.
NKR Chairman Lutz Goebel calls for fundamental changes to the approach: "Today, some applications are still digital" and are then often printed out and filed. "You need fully end-to-end electronic processes." However, this is precisely what the federal government was allowed and wanted to digitize with the Online Access Act. The actual administrative processes usually lie with local authorities or federal states. However, Goebel sees the responsible politicians facing a massive problem: "Citizens are slowly realizing that the state is taking forever to implement its promises and is losing credibility as a result." It is time to promise less and deliver more.
(mma)